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want you back on Darien without delay so we’ve already broken orbit and locked into a return trajectory. We should be entering Darien’s orbital shell in less than an hour.’
    Not knowing how much the Tygran knew about the warpwell and the Legion of Avatars, he decided to avoid the topic.
    ‘Commander, your man Berg said you’d be filling me in on some of the background, especially regarding your own part in all of this. Also I was wondering how soon I’ll be able to speak with my uncle.’
    ‘If you like, we can go straight to the bridge now and I can have the tac officer try to raise our planetside operator. And he’ll see if the major is available.’
    Greg nodded. ‘That sounds great. Let’s do it.’
    ‘Very well. Your sleeping rack is just along there, second on the right, if you want to rest before Darien.’ Ash indicated a narrow side passage, then led Greg back to a junction and down a steep set of steps. ‘As to how we came to be here, well, it’s a tale and a half and your uncle played a big role in it.’
    ‘Why am I not surprised?’
    As they headed forward and then up more stairs, Greg heard how several days ago Ash was carrying out a stealth mission on Nivyesta when he was captured by the Uvovo. Greg remembered hearing about this from the Sentinel, details which Ash confirmed, how the Uvovo scholars had neutralised the binary bomb in his chest. Ash gave a brief account of how he and Uncle Theo were rescued from pro-Hegemony Tygrans by Franklyn Gideon, captain of the renegade Stormlion troopers. It ended with the encounter with the Tygran Marshal Becker aboard his flagship, and the intervention by a bizarre vessel sent by the Roug, an ancient and mysterious species.
    Ash finished up as they entered the bridge, a split-level space narrowing towards the forward viewport. Its curved transparency glimmered at the edges with data feeds and system graphics of one kind or another, but it was the view of Darien that held Greg’s attention, a bright blue and white orb set against the hazy swirls of interstellar dust which blurred the stars into glimmering haloed jewels.
    Home
. The pang of yearning he felt was unexpected, and conflicted with his thoughts of Catriona and an instinctive reluctance to leave her behind. But leave he must.
    Commander Ash settled into the captain’s chair and attached comm devices to ear and mouth. A moment later he was in conversation with one of the other two bridge officers whose stations sat on the lower level. He nodded and turned back to Greg.
    ‘We’re still out of the effective range of the portable communicator back on Darien. Another twenty minutes and we’ll be able to establish a secure link.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Greg said. ‘I appreciate your efforts. In the meantime, there’s a wee gap or two in my understanding … ’
    ‘You mean how
we
came to be here?’
    Greg nodded. ‘Was it the result of a clash of politics?’
    Ash frowned. ‘On Tygra we don’t have your kind of political debate. We have been a military society for so long that many aspects of public provision – health, education, or power supplies, for example – have remained universal due to a consensus of necessity. Resources are not plentiful, which has led to restrictions on market influences. Our energies are instead directed towards improvements in our combat abilities and readiness. There is honour in battle and the love and litany of battle forces certain responsibilities on every Tygran soldier.
    ‘But our principles are only as strong as the men and women who live by them. Marshal Becker was corrupted by the Hegemony and in turn he has corrupted the commanderies, the Bund and Tygran society … ’
    The Bund was the semi-elected council governing Tygran society, and the commanderies were like regiments, each with its own history, tales, axioms and heroes.
    ‘Becker is unhesitating in his compliance with the Hegemony’s needs,’ Ash went on, ‘no matter how cruel and ignoble, even